


Stranger

by carriecmoney



Series: The Dryad Set [3]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Fantasy, Sirens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-23
Updated: 2015-07-23
Packaged: 2018-04-10 21:48:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4409093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carriecmoney/pseuds/carriecmoney
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is what the Black Forest brook with the sharp whitewater bend witnessed on a foggy autumn morning:</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stranger

**Author's Note:**

> {A/N: Okay this is only loosely in the same world as the other two listed in this series but it's the thought that counts. This has been sitting half-done in my notebook forever because I couldn't decide how to wrap it up, but I finally said 'fuck it' and decided to throw it up as-is. If it feels half-done, let me know and I'll see if I can add more.
> 
> Links: [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/carriecmoney) [tumblr](http://carriecmoney.tumblr.com) [art of these designs](http://carriecmoney.tumblr.com/post/123235573606) [Nix (also called Neck but that didn't sound as cool in English)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neck_%28water_spirit%29)}

Tadashi stood on the lip of a rock over a roaring river stemmed from the Rhine, one hand gripping a sticky spruce sapling as he peered into the whitewater. His backpack threatened to overbalance him, but he had months of hauling experience to help him stay up straight and not tumble in. He breathed in, freshwater and sap flooding his senses. Maybe there were some berry bushes along the bank for a free snack.

For now, he plopped down tailor-style where he was, shrugging his backpack off and digging for his lunch – a ham sandwich that last night’s hostel landlady had made for him. He bit into it with a sigh, absorbing the foggy damp of a mid-October midmorning in the Rhine Valley.

He had been on his own in this country for a week, but he’d really been on his own for six years, ever since he ran away from his farmhouse to become a musician in the city. That hadn’t worked out well, though, so a few months ago he sold all his things except for a few changes of clothes and his violin for a transfer ticket around the world to a land where music gods still existed, sirens hiding in their kelp hair from motorboats or shedding tails to run discoteks. If he didn’t learn something from them, well, he’d drown trying.

Ever since he appeared in the transfer station leagues to the east, he had been searching for a new teacher, but many sirens and their sisters kept their secrets under wraps, preferring to live alone or song-mute to fight the stereotype of the drowner, the seducer. He’d been slapped a few times when he asked a pretty voice if she liked sailor meat.

He finished his sandwich and reached blindly into his pack for his water bottle.

“ _Ow!_ ” He jerked his hand out – a black mouse hung to his finger, sharp teeth cutting his skin. He shook it off sending it flying into the water twenty meters below with a few drops of his blood. He wiped his finger on his dirty jeans, sucking at it – little bastard must’ve climbed into his pack at the hostel. It wasn’t the weirdest thing he had hitchhike on his back, to be honest – he’d never forget the brownie at midsummer. It hadn’t _bit_ him, though.

He dragged his pack away from the edge a little to empty it out to see if the mouse had brought any friends along. The bits and bobs that accumulated when you lived out of a backpack for months fluttered out – receipts, postcards, wine corks, little gifts from those he had met on his journey. A tin of illegal tobacco he’d never touched, a gift from a fellow traveler, rolled out and off the edge, clinking on the rocks. He looked over after it, then shrugged. He hadn’t planned on chewing it at any rate – he liked his teeth where they were.

When he turned around, a stranger was standing just at the edge of the fog.

He yelped, jumping back, heels hitting air. He wobbled, arms flailing, stomach bottoming out – this was it–

The stranger crossed the rock in four long strides and grabbed his wrist, yanking him to solid ground. Tadashi fell into his chest - he was _tall,_ what the hell - a chest that smelled like horse sweat and algae. For a ghost, he was super solid.

Tadashi stammered, staring up into small eyes set in a pale face, dark irises too large for their windows. They watched him stutter, impassive, still a steel grip on his wrist. Did this stranger even speak a language Tadashi knew?

He snapped something in German – Tadashi heard a “you” and a “me”, but whatever verb was in the middle was lost on him. Tadashi shook his head, trying to get away; the stranger shook him like a mouse on his finger. Tadashi looked down and away – the hems of his baggy linen pants and heavy slickcoat were dripping water. Had they come from the far-below river? And what on _Earth_ were they wearing?

The stranger rasped something again, like rusty gears in an old flour mill. Tadashi shook his head harder – “I can’t understand you,” he said in Japanese first, then in German. It was a useful phrase. The stranger’s mouth frowned – twisted into a weird smile with no joy. They let him go, backing away a few steps and peering up through the fog to the weak autumn sun. Tadashi sidled away from the edge towards his torn-apart bag, bending down slowly to stuff everything back in before this weird guy could do anything too crazy.

The last thing he grabbed was his violin case, battered and paper-machèd with stickers. The instant he touched it, the stranger snapped back to this world, big-small eyes focused in on Tadashi. He gulped.

The stranger scowled, teeth grinding, eyes narrowed to mica slits. He hummed – cleared his throat – hummed louder, clearer. Tadashi blinked as the light breeze faded to nothing, the stranger’s hum digging into his head. The stranger’s lips parted into a wordless melody – _he’s a baritone_ , a distant voice supplied – as Tadashi watched him, eyes round.

The stranger’s voice was clear as the rapids under Tadashi’s feet, sharp as fir needles. Tadashi’s hands were fumbling his violin out of its case before he could blink, bow to strings before he even tucked it under his chin to answer.

The harmony visited his strings like it had always lived there, but he had never learned the right knock to draw it out. The stranger’s lips curved the slightest bit as he stepped closer, holding eye contact with Tadashi through the fog.

This is the story the wordless tune told:

Of a family, old as the river rocks, a school of predator fish with sharp teeth and song, waiting with mouths open for succulents to fall in.

Of people, people, a rush of people, faces and names and dreams – devoured, for their life; given, for their song; aided, for their salvation.

Of progress, plodding on, the carthorse that stole the farm maiden’s plough and plunged into the river with it, racing downstream without her permission.

Of peasants, of knights, of kings and conquerors and sailors above all, oathless men who fed him to fullgrown.

Of death, not by his teeth, but by fear, blinding those who traveled their waters, clouding it with the blood of his brethren until he couldn’t see as he ran, racing, away, away, into the forest, bank to bank.

Of solitude on these lonely rapids. Of snakeskin. Of a century of silence.

Tadashi’s violin wept in counterpoint, the human heartbeat to this wild, pain-stained life. It whispered back about a small farm a sea of land apart, but this was too intense for that to register, teardrops on heartstrings. His life was a flash to this stranger’s star.

The stranger slacked off to his hum, and Tadashi fell back into his body. He stared at his bow, slack-jawed – he had never played that well in his _life_. The stranger laid a large, damp hand over his, gold eyes a torch as his hum radiated through Tadashi.

Of an offering, an old price – blood, a black animal, northern tobacco. A summoning. A lesson. Huh. Some fairytales still held true.

“Nix,” Tadashi breathed, having researched every kind of siren possible before embarking on his quest. Now he saw that the stranger’s ears were just slits cut into the side of his head. The stranger nodded, eyes barely open.

“Human,” he said in German, same tone. Now that he had warmed up after a hundred years and change of disuse, his speaking voice was a hot knife through Tadashi’s butter brain. Tadashi nodded, too thunderstruck to laugh. He had met ogres, golems, kitsune, and many a witch and a warlock in his travels, but this stranger made him believe in magic. “Human,” he sang, hand trembling over Tadashi’s. Tadashi gulped.

“Are you gonna eat me?” he asked in Japanese, but the stranger got his gist. He glanced Tadashi over, a steak on display. Tadashi’s muscles hummed along with him. The stranger’s hand fell away as he shook his head. Tadashi breathed again, violin escaping from its rest. The stranger gestured for it; Tadashi didn’t hesitate to hand over his only possession. The stranger examined it, fingers running over wood, plucking a string with a fingernail. He frowned at a sticker on the underside – his high school’s logo. Tadashi couldn’t hold back a laugh this time, a snort. The stranger glared. Tadashi flapped a hand.

“I’m sorry, it’s just – your _face-_ ” He slapped his mouth shut to try and hold it in. The stranger’s face twisted more, caught in a cyclone. Poor guy hadn’t had a decent conversation in a century and here Tadashi was, laughing at him. Tadashi bowed in apology, biting his lip. The stranger gave the violin back, thrusting it in Tadashi’s face, before plopping down on the ground. He planted his hands on his folded legs, glaring and grunting at Tadashi to sit down as well. Tadashi blinked a few times before it clicked and he scrambled to kneel in front of him, violin across his thighs.

The stranger’s mouth worked, words scattered to time. Tadashi waited, strings cutting into his palm where he gripped his violin’s neck. The stranger looked up at Tadashi, a lost wilderness in ripe wheat. Tadashi smiled and tucked his violin under his chin to speak a language they both understood.

The stranger eased.

* * *

They spent the day there, talking, Tadashi’s fingers played raw until he switched between it and singing, something he only did under threat of amputation. The stranger – the siren, this nix – never tired, never cracked, barely breathed. He found his words when the fog burned away, an antiquated vocabulary that made even less sense than normal German, but Tadashi understood it anyway.

This is what they talked about:

About Tadashi’s music, his training, his first blister, what his favorite chord was.

About the years, the stranger’s slow seconds, a constant waterfall tumble around this tidepool in time.

About the world, about how it had spun on past the stranger, heedless of his turned-away gaze.

About how small it all was – for a fee, Tadashi could cross the world in a day. The stranger’s eyes bugged, a flash of white, and he dug in, cracking Tadashi’s global knowledge open to pick through for the meat.

Tadashi shivered, hitting a sour note; the stranger winced and grabbed the neck quiet, and the world closed in around them. Tadashi looked around – the sun was long set, an eerie twilight with staring animal eyes as their stars. Far below, the water began to gurgle again. His stomach answered. He glanced down – how long had it been since that sandwich? Years, maybe. He groaned and rolled to the side to unfurl his stinging, numb legs – that hurt like _hell_. He set his violin aside to massage feeling into them and they yelled at him for his crimes. The stranger watched, unblinking. But he wasn’t really a stranger anymore.

“What’s your name?” Tadashi asked in Japanese – stuttered in German. The stranger’s heavy eyebrows drew together. Tadashi gestured to himself. “Tadashi.”

The stranger opened a hand. “I don’t know,” he admitted, looking down. “I forgot.”

“Oh.” They fell silent, Tadashi working feeling back into his legs, the stranger just a watcher. “Do you like being human?” Tadashi asked – ah, hell. He hummed, finding a tune, and sang his question. The stranger scoffed.

 _I’m never human_ , he sang back in his old German. Tadashi rolled his eyes.

 _You know what I mean_. The stranger rolled his tongue in a purr, a long rhetorical trill that made Tadashi shiver again. Another unknown.

Tadashi frowned at his knees, peeking through the rips in his jeans. He was already thinking of the details – new clothes, enough money, a pair of shoes – before the question rang from his vocal folds.

_Want to find out?_

* * *

Tadashi camped on that rock for the night, curled up in a gifted sleeping bad and trading lullabies with his stranger until he fell asleep, snore a hum. When Tadashi woke up just after dawn, his stranger hadn’t moved, chin on his knees as he stared at the steep pine bank across the river. Tadashi sat up slow, rubbing at his face.

 _Good morning_ , he yawned, singing automatic. His stranger grunted. Tadashi shrugged and wormed out of his sleeping bag, rolling it up and strapping to the outside of his pack in a storm of yawns and stretches. His belly yawned with him; he rubbed it as he pulled out a gallon bag of trailmix, replenished at every stop with whatever he could pick. He tossed a handful in his mouth, chomping on pinenuts and dried blueberries as he thrust the bag under his stranger’s nose. The stranger jumped; Tadashi grinned.

 _Think you can eat this?_ The stranger sniffed the open bag, reached in to pull a few pieces out. He crunched on them, one by one; his eyes widened, and Tadashi laughed, even that a threnody. His breath was turning to music.

He left the bag in the stranger’s lap as he packed up camp, humming a playsong as he wrapped up everything water-tight against the clinging damp of the fog, back again, and pulled out a knit cap from a nice old lady he chopped wood for a month ago. He held it out to his stranger in exchange for the half-empty bag. No fairytale had mentioned that nixes were bottomless pits.

The stranger frowned at the hat. Tadashi gestured to his ears. _Those aren’t normal_. He frowned at Tadashi’s human ears, feeling his own slits with fingertips covered in salt. He bowed his head and accepted, letting Tadashi tug it down to cover them. The clothes, well, they were a normal kind of strange, even if they never dried. Tadashi pulled him to his feet, unfolding like a tent pole – the height must be a him thing.

 _Are you ready to meet the world again?_ Tadashi asked through the veil of a field song about planting. His stranger gripped his hands, dragging him to drown. Tadashi gulped. This could be a terrible thing. His stranger’s heavy eyes held him – if anyone doubted his age, they could just look here for proof.

His stranger ducked his head, breaking the spell, and circled Tadashi to stand on the lip of the rock, toes curled around it. Tadashi watched, backpack heavy on his shoulders, as his stranger stood there – in prayer, in meditation, in the calm before the throat strike of a master. The sounds of the forest retreated with Tadashi’s breath.

His stranger turned and marched into the trees without a glance back. Tadashi rushed to follow, lead him south to the road.

* * *

This is what Tadashi learned on their first week of travel together:

When his stranger met another, he locked up until he could unravel the situation, leaving Tadashi to make illiterate smalltalk in his stead.

When he _did_ talk, it was quiet, a bare mumble, eyes averted from the other stranger, so Tadashi still had to translate. His German exploded.

When they were alone, walking along the side of the road or bedding down in someone’s spare room, they never talked, but sang or played – that communication vein flowed faster.

When Tadashi laughed, his stranger stopped the world to watch, like he had never experienced such a human phenomenon before.

When his stranger met his first nonhuman outside himself and the brook animals, he froze, eyes wide, at the ease with which they moved about in a world that had hunted his family for the same crime. Tadashi grabbed his arm and dragged him on.

When his stranger sang, even a little hum, the dust in the air stilled, the sky shrank, and everyone in earshot hung to listen.

They were in a cobblestone city, older than his stranger, packed to the brim with life and overloading both their loner’s senses. But Tadashi was down to bare coins, and they needed lunch money. He found a sidewalk spot along the riverwalk that seemed quieter than the rest of the city and opened his violin case at their feet. He rosined up his bow as his stranger found a perch on the riverwall, turning up his collar against the wind as he stared down into the dirty water. Tadashi smiled at his profile, drawing his bow across his strings.

 _Do you miss your old river?_ he asked, their potential paying audience melting from his awareness. His stranger looked up.

 _My old river doesn’t exist,_ he hummed back, penetrating the sound cloud of the sidewalk. _No river is ever old, they cycle water, always new_.

 _Does that answer my question?_ Tadashi returned, smiling through his melody turn. A couple with a stroller stopped in front of them. His stranger glanced up, mouth quirking under lowered eyebrows.

 _Do you miss your home? Your family? Who you used to be?_ he snapped through his lyrics, an old song about a sailor’s wife waiting on the beach. Tadashi accompanied him, agreement, consolation, goading. _I barely remember my own, those rocks were all I had. Of course I miss it_. His stranger turned to face him, long legs dangling, always dripping water. Tadashi had stopped noticing their damp snail trail. _But I’ll never go back, not now. Even in the rapids I grew stagnant_. He gestured at the buildings that hemmed them in, old and new. _I refuse to be an antique!_

Tadashi grinned, picking up the lead in the song for an instrumental solo. _Good_.

His stranger’s face convulsed – the face for when his emotions tangled too much for the snake simplicity he was used to. Tadashi played as he thought, swaying, watching. Their crowd was interfering with traffic. His stranger hummed, a nonsense tune for nonsense words. They harmonized in their reverie, weaving around each other’s melody, a cello to a soprano.

 _I like having a partner_ , Tadashi’s violin reeled out, making his stranger’s head snap up from where he was considering the dirty water. Tadashi sighed as the final note rang out, a sharp question mark. All was quiet on the riverfront as they stared each other down, song suspended.

Their sidewalk crowd, pressed four layers thick, applauded, Tadashi’s forgotten violin case overflowing.


End file.
